Gillian says not afraid of Grand Master Kramnik
By Prudence Phiri
Fri 09 Aug. 2013, 14:00 CAT
GILLIAN Bwalya say he will not be intimidated by his first round opponent Grand Master Vladimir Kramnik’s record in the Chess World Cup Championship.
Kramnik is a former world champion and was the Classical World Chess champion from 2000 to 2006 before he won the World Chess champion from 2006 to 2007.
The Russian has also won three gold medals and three individual medals at the chess olympiads.
In an interview, Bwalya who was scheduled to leave for Norway last night ahead of Chess World Cup games, said he would ride on the underdog tag to go past the first round.
“I know he will underrate me and I will utilise that to beat him. I will not be intimidated by his record,” Bwalya said.
He said he had trained hard and was ready for the challenge.
“I will not give up easily, I have worked hard for this tournament,” Bwalya said.
His coach Aron Banda said Bwalya had read a lot of books written by Kramnik and was conversant with his style of play.
“We used most of the books written by him (Kramnik) and Bwalya knows how to tackle him, we know his type of play,” Banda said.
Bwalya, scheduled to play his first game on Sunday, is among the 128 players participating in the tournament which has six Africans.
The other Africans are Amin Bassem, Ahmed Adly, Samy Shoker and Essam Gindy from Egypt and Ali Sebber of Morocco.
No African has ever gone passed the first round of the tournament.
Bwalya qualified to the World Championships after winning the Zone 4.3 in Botswana.
Source: http://www.postzambia.com
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